AUSTIN—The Texas Senate late on Friday passed sweeping abortion restrictions almost entirely along party lines following weeks of protests, lobbying and debate from both sides in the abortion debate.

House Bill 2, identical to its Senate companion bill, awaits the promised signature of Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who called a second special legislative session to deal with the matter after opponents successfully stalled it as time expired in the first special session on June 25.

The bill, passed 19-11 with one Democrat voting for it, is a compilation of legislation proposed in the regular session of the 83^rd Legislature that ended in May. It will ban most abortions after 20 weeks “post-fertilization,” require ambulatory care standards for abortion facilities and require abortion doctors to have hospital privileges within 30 miles of their practices.

HB 2 will also require abortion doctors to be present when any abortion-inducing drug, including RU-486, is administered.

Texas becomes the latest state to enact strict abortion regulations, despite efforts by abortion-rights activists to shut down or slow the legislative process. Their large and loud demonstrations at the State Capitol in recent weeks punctuated the debate but their efforts were countered by an influx of pro-life supporters days before the final vote.

“I am proud of our lawmakers and citizens who tirelessly defended our smallest and most vulnerable,” Perry said in a prepared statement.

Critics and many news reports claimed the increased requirements would force the majority of Texas abortion clinics to close, while proponents countered that abortion clinics should be held to the same standards of care as other surgical centers. Numerous media outlets have reported that only six or seven of the 42 Texas abortion clinics meet the standards of ambulatory care.

According to the bill’s text, clinics have until Sept. 1, 2014 to comply with the ambulatory care requirement.

Pro-life senators, including Republican Donna Campbell, an emergency room physician, have said the evidence suggests that babies can feel pain at 20 weeks.

The vote came just before midnight—more than 10 hours into debate and more than two weeks after a 10-plus hour filibuster, procedural stalling and a raucous crowd of protestors at the end of the first special session succeeded in keeping the Republican majority from prevailing with the bill.

Pro-choice senators proposed 20 amendments without success and stated their strong disagreement with the bill in closing arguments. During debate, occasional outbursts from pro-choice activists in the Senate gallery could be heard.

As promised by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, the rules of decorum were strictly enforced and violators were quickly escorted from the chamber.

On Friday, Twitter feeds reported Department of Public Safety troopers—called out in force to the Capitol at the outset of protests in late June—checked all purses and bags before allowing spectators into the Senate gallery. Reports of possible disruptions by the bill’s opponents spurred troopers to confiscate tampons and other miscellaneous items. The DPS released a statement that jars of feces, urine and paint were also seized, but pro-choice activists disputed that report, charging the DPS with playing politics under pressure from the GOP-controlled Legislature, the Texas Tribune online newspaper reported.

State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Ft. Worth, became a pop icon among pro-choice advocates following her 11-hour filibuster against the legislation in the first special session. Since then she has campaigned against the pro-life bill at Planned Parenthood-sponsored rallies. On Friday during debate she praised the protestors who disrupted the earlier proceedings.

Protestors continued their rally against the bill on Saturday, vowing legal challenges.

“There are people in charge here who want this bill to move very quickly so they won’t be delayed in their climb up a political ladder; so they will not be further embarrassed by the noisy, messy, beautiful public outcry that is part and parcel of our beloved democracy,” Davis said in her closing argument against HB 2.

But Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, the lone Democrat to vote for HB 2, called the legislation a victory for the fight against “the war on children.” He admonished his peers on both sides of the aisle for not giving their support to legislation that champions life at all stages.

Both sides invoked God as a source for their guiding principles during debate. Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said she was pro-life and supported Planned Parenthood for the health care services it provides. She said she supported the 20-week ban on abortion but not the other requirements. The other provisions, she and other Democrats argued, restrict access to health care for poor women.

Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, rebuked Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, for implying that anyone opposed to HB 2 lacked faith in God. Whitmire noted the day in 1956 when he was baptized after proclaiming “Jesus as my Lord and savior” at a Baptist Church in Pasadena. He then went on to recount how he helped pay for a co-worker’s trip to New York for an abortion in 1972 when they were still illegal in Texas.

But Lucio, a Catholic, called out his peers.

“If you are a person of faith there is no way to justify abortion by pointing to God,” he said.

Other pro-life senators said science supports their arguments for the 20-week ban and their faith compelled them to treat all life with dignity.

Pro-life and conservative organizations, whose absence from the Capitol had grown increasingly conspicuous in contrast to the pro-choice demonstrations, rallied to the Capitol Monday in a show of support for the legislation. Many stayed through the final passage late Friday.

Kyleen Wright, president of Texans for Life, tweeted, “A good day for Texas. A good day to be Texan. God bless Texas and thank your David Dewhurst.”

In a statement retweeted by state Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, author of the Senate companion bill, Elizabeth Graham, director of Texas Right to Life stated, “This new law adds a critical protection for a new class of citizens, preborn children.”

The 20-week abortion ban is based on “post-fertilization” age of a pre-born child based on the estimate of a physician, who must then file the information with the state when an abortion is performed, the bill says.

The ban will not apply to abortions deemed “necessary to avert the death or substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman or abortions that are performed on unborn children with severe fetal abnormalities.”

—Additional reporting by TEXAN editor Jerry Pierce 

July 8 rally draws 2,000 over debate about abortion restrictions

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AUSTIN—Hugely outnumbered, half a dozen Christians stood before an impassioned crowd of abortion-rights activists in a State Capitol overflow auditorium June 23 and tried to speak for pro-life legislation scheduled for debate in the Texas House. When an Austin pastor tried to address them, he couldn’t utter a sentence before angry shouts and scripted chants drowned out his words.

What followed was completely unscripted. Within a hostile environment, seeds of faith and hope were planted. What grew from that moment was something only God could have orchestrated, witnesses said.

“Can I say something?” Dan Forshee asked the audience of about 250 people awaiting the start of the Texas House of Representatives’ debate on Senate Bill 5, legislation that would have restricted abortions after 20 weeks and required stricter standards of abortion providers.

Forshee, the pastor of Great Hills Baptist Church, was only one of about 25 pro-life advocates—most of them from his church—in the auditorium. The audience had just been stirred by a 10-minute impromptu pep rally lead by Lize Burr, president of the Central Texas Democratic Women. Burr demurely asked the crowd if Forshee should be allowed to speak. The room erupted in shouts of “No!” and “Boo!”

Undeterred, Forshee and five fellow church members made their way to the front of the auditorium.

He asked Burr, “So your voice can be heard but ours can’t?”

Again shouts.

Forshee continued, “Your forefathers and my forefathers, they died …”

The rest of his statement was lost in the ensuing outburst.

The Great Hills members were at the Capitol because Cindy Ausmussen, a fellow church member and Concerned Women for America Central Texas director, had sent out a last-minute plea for support from her church. Little did she know the hostility they would endure.

“There was a real, palpable antagonism. It was strong,” said Forshee about his efforts to address the audience.

His wife Ashley attempted to interject. Without a microphone her raised voice shook with emotion as she asked the audience to observe the same decorum shown on the House floor when competing ideas are debated.

“This is a protest! This is not the Legislature!”

Chants of “Get out!” began to swell.

But above the clamor a few voices called out.

“Let her speak.”

Curiously, the cry came not from fellow pro-life supporters but from the sea of orange-clad abortion proponents.

Later, as the organized shout-down continued a few protestors approached Forshee and apologized for the outburst. They asked him and his group to speak their piece in person. Clusters of people began to listen as Great Hills church members began addressing specific concerns introduced by the protestors. As challenges to God’s role in human creation and the nature of life itself were voiced, the pro-lifers patiently and graciously presented their answers in a way that seemed to disarm those listening.

Ashley Forshee spoke with two women, one of whom confided that her father had raped her over a seven-year period. Had she been impregnated by her father, the woman argued, under SB 5 she could not have had an abortion because the law made no exceptions for rape. Dan Forshee said his wife’s heart broke for the young women and for more than an hour, Ashley Forshee talked with them and tried to explain how God can bring peace to the human heart.

At the same time, Dan Forshee spoke with a woman who claimed her views on abortion were rooted in her Christian faith. But Forshee discovered her knowledge of Scripture was very limited even though her T-shirt bore Ephesians 3:20 on the back. She was unfamiliar with Psalm 139 and King David’s eloquent description of God’s hand in the creation of humanity.

The woman parroted the oft-spoken rational that unwanted babies will be born to destitute mothers with little to no means to care for them. Therefore, abortion is the compassionate option to a life of poverty, she said.

But when Forshee said avoiding a presumed life of poverty is no excuse for the abortion of 30 million babies since Roe vs. Wade (Forshee acknowledged his numbers were low), the woman was stunned.

“She said, ‘No. That cannot be,’” the pastor said.

“They have those programmed, pat answers and when you come back with the truth it really rattles them.”

Forshee continued to refute the women’s arguments by championing the role Christian ministries play in the lives of the poor.

Ausmussen was countering some of the same preconceived ideas as she spoke with three young women who, like many of their peers, too easily dismissed the correlation between God and the creation of life.

“They do not believe we are made in the image of God—that we have value, purpose and a reason,” she said.

Confounded by their ideology, Ausmussen asked, “What is the meaning of life, of being human?”

She tried to detail the intricacies of human creation but was rebuffed. The women refused to believe her assertions about medical development of the fetus and the abysmal care some women receive by abortion providers.

But they were open to further discussion of the matter and two of the women gave Ausmussen their email addresses.

She said, “I’m praying that will be the door to minister to them individually.”

Though the confrontation with the abortion activists was emotionally jarring, Ausmussen said she was grateful for the experience. It gave the members of Great Hills a chance to speak truth to women who had not heard it.

Ausmussen said the experience brought to mind Proverbs 18:17: “The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.”

“We’re just trying to show that what they believe is a lie, if they’ll listen,” she said.

Forshee said he, too, was grateful for the opportunity to share his faith and truths from Scripture with those who had not heard it but said he left the meeting with a feeling of sorrow. An overwhelming spirit of sadness and deception had permeated the auditorium, he said.

At the close of discussions, ideologies were not changed nor were lives given to Christ, but Forshee and Ausmussen said they believe lives were influenced. So much of ministry is just showing up and being available, Forshee said.

“What God did?” Ausmussen asked. “God used it in a way we won’t ever realize.”

—A rally for life is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday on the Capitol steps in Austin to encourage passage of pro-life legislation during the second special session of the Texas Legislature that began this week. Churches are encouraged to bring vans and buses full of their members to attend the peaceful rally as the Legislature considers HB 2 and SB 9. The bills would outlaw most abortions beyond 20 weeks, require abortion doctors to maintain a standard of care and to have privileges at a hospital within a 30-mile radius of their practice.